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Monday, March 18, 2024
March 18, 2024

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Two Vancouver men get 38 years in 2013 robbery

They tied up victims, forced them into closet at gunpoint

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Two Vancouver men with extensive criminal backgrounds were each sentenced Thursday to 38 years in prison for committing a home-invasion robbery Dec. 4 in an apartment in Vancouver’s Sifton neighborhood. The two victims were tied up with cords and forced at gunpoint inside a bedroom closet.

Following a seven-day trial, Calvin J. Quichocho, 22, and Brandon English, 21, were found guilty by a Clark County jury of two counts each of first-degree robbery and first-degree kidnapping.

Each of the counts included firearm enhancements, and each enhancement adds a mandatory five years to any sentence, which must be served consecutively, under the law.

The defendants’ attorneys, Tony Lowe and Bob Yoseph, argued that under recent rulings by the State Supreme Court, Superior Court Judge Barbara Johnson had discretion to reduce the sentence set by the state Legislature.

However, Johnson said there were no mitigating factors to justify reducing the sentence. Both of the defendants have extensive and violent criminal history, she noted.

“It is fortunate here no one was physically hurt,” Johnson said. “These are crimes in which people are frequently hurt or killed.”

English was previously convicted of second-degree assault in both 2008 and 2011. Quichocho was convicted of first-degree burglary in 2010 and robberies in 2010 and 2011, said Deputy Prosecutor Dan Gasperino.

Gasperino recommended a sentence of 40 years.

“For the facts of this case, it’s just way too much as far as punishment … it’s just way out of proportion,” Lowe argued.

Quichocho and English robbed Austin Bondy and Brittany Horn at gunpoint Dec. 4 inside a unit at the Prairie View Apartment Homes, 12611 N.E. 99th St., Gasperino said.

Court records indicate the two men and John R. Lujan, 18, went to the apartment under the ruse that they planned to buy marijuana. Instead, they stole valuables belonging to Bondy and Horn, who just happened to be at the apartment at the time, Gasperino said.

Gasperino said the victims were not drug dealers.

“They just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Gasperino said.

Once the suspects were inside the apartment, Quichocho drew a firearm from his clothing and pointed it at the victims. English shoved Lujan onto the couch and told him to stay down, according to court records.

Quichocho then ordered Bondy and Horn to get on the ground, court records say.

After Lujan bound the man and woman with cords, Quichocho again pointed the gun at the victims and told the man that “the bullets in the firearm were for him,” Clark County sheriff’s Detective Jared Stevens wrote in a court affidavit.

“We have testimony from both of the victims that they thought they were going to die,” Gasperino said during his closing arguments. “They had a gun pointed at their face.”

Quichocho and English then forced the victims into a bedroom closet and told them to stay inside for at least an hour, according to court records. Quichocho and English left the residence with the victims’ marijuana, an Xbox 360, a wallet, a purse and a cellphone. They left Lujan inside the apartment with the victims “in an attempt to act as if he was not involved in the theft,” Stevens wrote.

In an agreement with prosecutors, Lujan was sentenced to 365 days of confinement after pleading guilty to second-degree robbery.

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